Re. A difficult Pali word

[Ven. Tantra]

�Heva, naked Eve, she had no navel. Gaze. A belly
without a blemish. Bulging big, a buckler of taut
vellum�� (Joyce, Ulysses).

By �tumescence� I would hope to imply �swelling� e.g.,
�tumor.� Further, �tum-� (or �tuma�) is likely an
apostrophe form of Pali atuma=atta: Sanskrit aataman.

*Tumburu* is an interesting term/name with perhaps
some relevance. Its origin is obscure, its conjectured
meaning highly enigmatic. The name appears in Central
Asian Tocharian literature (Dimbure) and in Old Turkic
(Dimburi) as recorded in their respective versions of
the Sanskrit Maitreyasamtri-naataka where Tumburu is
mentioned as a Gandharva together with Pa~ncazikha and
Citrasena. These three Gandharvas are followers of
Dhrtaraastra, a lokapaala, i.e., one of the �Four
World-Guardians,� specifically of the East. Tumburu is
also the name of a yaksha and the brother of the Four
Kumaarii, the four �girl� deities or Mahaayaksinyah
also referred to as Bhaginiis. The four Kumaarii are
portrayed as standing on ships and living in the
ocean. Their names appear repeatedly as Jaya, Vijaya,
Ajita, Aparaajita. They have a brother called Kumara
(though apparently not Kaartikeya). His �real� name
seems to have been *Tumburu*.

Note also �The Four Faces of Tumburu,� P.C. Bagchi,
�On Some Tantrik Texts Studied in Ancient Kambuja,� 2
parts (1929): 754-69 and (1930): 97-107. Online texts
at
http://sino-sv3.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/FULLTEXT/SCAN/51439.htm
and
http://sino-sv3.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/bag.htm.

VT






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